


rough around the edges

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Episode: s03e10 Maveth, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 17:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5425745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malick's already gotten what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rough around the edges

**Author's Note:**

> There's a fic I've been trying to write since 3x10 aired. This is not that fic. But it might be a prequel to it? Who knows.
> 
> Title is from Tove Lo's _Moments_. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Malick calls her feral, and maybe he’s right.

There’s such anger in Jemma, a horrible storm of fury raging in her chest, and it’s not new. It’s grown stronger today—it doubled when poor Banks had his gun turned upon him, and increased by an order of magnitude the moment she saw Ward’s hateful face—but it’s always present, these days.

Ward says it’s a new development. It’s really, really not.

She’s been angry since the uprising. Only a little, at first—just a tiny core of rage at the bottom of her lungs, a little extra push to get her through the collapse of her entire world—but inch by inch, it’s taken over her entire being.

Part of her—the soft, idealistic part that wanted to join a field team in the first place, that was desperate for _adventure_ —bemoans its progress—mourns the loss of who she used to be.

The rest of her knows that anger is the only way to survive.

It gives her the strength to meet Malick’s eyes—to ignore Ward, which to him is worse than any insult she could dream up—and demand answers when he offers none.

“What do you _want_?”

“Want?” Malick echoes. He has the nerve to look surprised—though ostentatiously so. She half expects him to press a hand to his heart in shock. “Why, I don’t want anything at all, Miss Simmons. I’ve already gotten what I wanted.”

He’s not just telling the truth, he’s _gloating_. But if he already has what he wants…

“Then why are we here?” she demands.

“As a gift, of course,” he says, appearing very pleased with himself.

Fitz scoffs. “A gif—”

“You did all of this for me? You shouldn’t have.”

Jemma can’t breathe. She’s aware of Fitz going still beside her, vaguely registers Malick stepping aside, but all of her attention is focused on—

“Will,” Fitz breathes, and it shocks the air back into her lungs.

“No,” she says. She can’t take her eyes off of him, the swagger in his step and the smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, and it’s all wrong. It’s all so wrong. “That’s not Will.”

He stops scant inches from her, close enough to take up her entire world, and he _looks_ like Will. He brushes his thumb over her cheek, smooths down the hair that’s escaped from her ponytail, and his skin is as rough and as warm as always, his touch perfectly gentle.

But it’s not him.

“You’re not Will,” she says—tries to accuse, but all of her anger (her _strength_ ) has melted away. She’s completely hollow now, save for a cold stone of knowledge in the pit of her stomach.

She doesn’t only know that this isn’t Will. She also knows who it _is_.

“No,” he agrees. He drags his fingers along her neck, a pointed touch that leaves scorching trails in its wake, and stops where the pendant of the necklace she can’t bear to wear anymore should sit. “Will died saving you.” He pauses, drawing the moment out, and Jemma’s heart pounds so loudly in her ears that she has to read the final two words on his lips.

And perhaps that’s a mercy, because his final two words are, “From me.”

She knew—she _knew_ —but the confirmation breaks something inside of her anyway. It doesn’t hurt; that will come later, she’s certain. Hurt and grief and everything else will flood in when she’s least ready for them, and she will drown in this loss.

For now, there’s only the hollow in her chest and the ice in her stomach.

“You’re _It_ ,” she says. “Death.”

He smiles, wide and wicked. “Maveth, if you like. But Death works.”

His hand slides up and around to cup the back of her neck, holding firmly when she tries to jerk away. Fitz is shouting something—she knows the sound of his voice like her own heartbeat—but she can’t make sense of it.

“Don’t touch me,” she orders, and that horrid smile only widens.

She wants to look away. She wants to break his gaze and spare herself the sight of the foreign coldness in Will’s beautiful eyes, but she can’t. She’s held captive, as trapped here as she ever was on the other planet.

“Oh, sunshine,” he says, fond enough to make her flinch. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”

How _dare_ he. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?” he asks. “It’s what you are, you know. Fourteen years, and you were the closest he ever got. It’s how he thought of you. Sunshine, hope, the only light in the universe…” He laughs. “You wouldn’t think to look at him that love would make him so poetic, but _man_. It’s almost embarrassing.”

Each word hits her like a punch to the sternum. Her vision swims. Perhaps she won’t drown in her loss, after all—perhaps she’ll shatter, hollow shell that she is, before she gets the chance.

“Stop,” she says, and it comes out on a sob.

“It’s all up here.” He taps his temple with his free hand. “Every thought, every memory, every dream.” He looks away, finally, and a smirk curls his lips as his eyes land on Fitz. “You wanna know what he thought about _him_?”

“ _Stop it_.”

“No?” Death pouts. “Well, maybe later, then.” His hand falls away from her neck, and only then, as cold rushes in to replace it, does she realize how much it’s been warming her. “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up.”

“Will we?” she asks. She tries to sound disdainful, angry, rude—anything but small and empty, which is how she’s actually feeling.

She suspects she fails miserably.

(She wants her anger back. She wants to be _feral_ right now, not hollow. But no matter how she tries to summon her rage—no matter how she reminds herself that this _thing_ killed Will, Will who was kind and brave and amazing, whom she loved, who _saved her life_ —it just won’t come.)

“Oh, yeah,” he says, and gives the man who’s been restraining her this entire time (how did she manage to forget him—forget _everyone_ —so quickly? Ward is still standing at the back of the room, watching with a worrying amount of curiosity) a nod. “After all, you’re here to stay.”

She’d like to protest that, but she doesn’t get the chance. Even as he speaks, she’s being dragged—easily, despite her struggling—out of the room and back down the hall.

Fitz isn’t dragged with her.

The last thing she sees, as the door swings shut, is Death turn to face him.


End file.
